If you have hardwood timber floors or decking underfoot at home, there’s every chance you have the Hurford Group to thank for their beautiful appearance and exceptional durability.

Shaped by four successive generations of the Hurford family, the business grows, harvests, manufactures and wholesales a range of hardwood products to many of Australia’s largest retailers.

It can also lay claim to a significant legacy in manufacturing innovation in this country, pioneering processes and products that have helped to reshape the industry.

That legacy traces back to Jim Hurford, a carpenter in Lismore, in northern New South Wales, during the Great Depression. Laid off from a government job building railway bridges, he had no choice but to get creative, sourcing timber leftovers he could dry and machine into flooring and cladding.

That entrepreneurial spirit set the foundations for a business that has continued to take one of the world’s oldest and most widely used natural materials and create new processes and products to fulfil modern demands.

One example is Hurford’s thermally enhanced flooring, which draws on an ancient Viking technique of cooking timber underground at extremely high temperatures. That process not only toughened the wood, but added an intriguing charred effect that permeated the entire timber.

“Our thinking always is, what innovative processes can we bring to add value to the material?” says Andrew Hurford, Hurford Group Chair and Jim’s grandson.

“The Viking roasting technique has been around forever, but in a modern context we can industrialise it. Roasting the wood cooks it through giving it a rich, deep walnut-like colouring, so that even when you want to re-sand and refinish the timber in 10 or 20 years’ time, the colour is consistent. It presents a traditional product in a new way.”

Andrew adds that Hurford’s take on the Viking roasting technique is just one of the innovative technologies introduced by his brother-in-law and company CEO Bob Engwirda.

Still headquartered in Lismore, the Hurford Group’s operations incorporate over 5,000 hectares of managed forests across 16 properties, plus sawmills, manufacturing plants and distribution facilities employing more than 300 full-time staff. It sources at least 50 different hardwoods from domestic and international sources, which it wholesales throughout Australia and New Zealand for flooring, building and joinery products.

“In 2004 we planted our first trees and every year since we have averaged 50,000 trees planted on new land. So this year we’re celebrating one million trees planted,” says Andrew, who is also the director of the company’s forestry division, Hurford Forests.

As the business has expanded, so has its support from NAB. “Each time we have had a major step in growth, there has never been any question, NAB have stood behind us 100 per cent and are more than enthusiastic to fund us,” Andrew says.

That decision to purchase a competitor business was a major investment, says Ricky Stanger, NAB Senior Business Banking Manager for Northern Rivers, but one that significantly increased profitability. “Through some extremely savvy decisions they exceeded what everyone thought they could do, and their numbers are phenomenal,” he says.

Of such progressive thinking, Jim Hurford would undoubtedly have approved.